Busy branches

Bloomberg

As a regular reader of this forum I get the impression that a large proportion of people use on line banking. With this in mind I cannot work out why branches are so busy. There is not really much that you cannot do on line nowadays. Recently I had to go to my local branch to pay in a cheque and the bank was so crowded with very long queues. Does anyone else think it strange that branches are so busy in this era of on line banking?

sjb2016

These are probably the same people that will happily wait in a queue to pay for their petrol when they could have just as easily paid for their petrol at the pump. I find this syndrome endemic in this country.

cgk1

As a regular reader of this forum I get the impression that a large proportion of people use on line banking.

but it's self-selective - if you are not using the internet, you aren't going to be here saying you aren't using the internet!

JuicyJesus

A lot of people won't, for whatever reason, use telephone or Internet banking. For some who will, they haven't thought of doing so. Banks do try to get people to use other channels but a lot of people are very resistant to the idea of anything other than getting cash out of the counter, checking an interim statement from a cashier and paying for things with cheque. Many if not most have been misinformed about the (actually minimal) risks of using other methods and are therefore afraid of using them.

When the cheque guarantee scheme ends in June, chances are the amount of cheques taken as payment will fall as consumers are forced to use other (better) payment methods, and footfall in branches will fall with it. Many banks are now opening larger flagship branches without any counter service, which will see footfall go down further. Some are restricting services at the counter (Santander and Nationwide made the right move in restricting small counter withdrawals - speeds things up for people who actually *have* to use a counter), which drives things down further.

What staggers me are the people who will pay an extra fee just to be able to pay bills with cash/cheques even when they know there are other alternatives which will (not could, will) save them money, time and effort. You'll see companies restrict this facility soon I think, which will reduce branch usage even further.

Spooneroonie

These queues (in my experience) are often caused by local small business people paying in significant volumes of cash / cheques and coins, which take the tellers a long time to process, so effectively close a service point down for 10-15mins, so that creates back-log for 'normal' customers.

Also, as JuicyJesus alludes to, there is a generational thing at play here too. My dad just prefers to deal with a person when he is managing his finances, and if that requires 'a small wait', then that is fine.

Hope these queues don't get you down...

p00hsticks

Personally, I've not been inside a bank branch since I had to pick up some foreign currency about ten years ago - I ue online banking most if the time, with cheques getting paid in out of hours via the Nationwide ATMs.

Msot bills get paid online but my co-op over the road is a PayPoint outlet so I could pay them there if I wanted.

I suspect my next visit will be in a few years time when my coin jar needs emptying......

ironlady2022

Spooneroonie wrote: »

These queues (in my experience) are often caused by local small business people paying in significant volumes of cash / cheques and coins, which take the tellers a long time to process, so effectively close a service point down for 10-15mins, so that creates back-log for 'normal' customers.

Also, as JuicyJesus alludes to, there is a generational thing at play here too. My dad just prefers to deal with a person when he is managing his finances, and if that requires 'a small wait', then that is fine.

Hope these queues don't get you down...

Agree totally here small businesses don't have means totake a card payment hence the large amount of cash they pay in
Some people are just old fashioned and like to come into a branch. Up until I finished working at the bank regulars use to come in daily just for a visit or some people use it to keep the localbranch open. No footfall=no point of having a physical branch

jen245

I only ever go into my local branch if I am paying in a cheque (via the quick deposit box), as its across the road form where I work. The queues are always horrendous, and I note that it is mainly those of the older generation who are in the queues

DrSyn

From my own pesonal observation, its mainly due to all the banks reducing the number of staff at open tills which people can use. I seen more staff doing nothing on the customer side of the tills!

The other day in a Daily Mail artical, when a customer was asked "did she see any change in the just modernised branch". The answer was "there where 2 staff members walking up and down the lines asking the customers if they can help them use the machines!"

Nothing about increasing the number of tills open to serve customers.

Tupperware_Queen

sjb2016 wrote: »

These are probably the same people that will happily wait in a queue to pay for their petrol when they could have just as easily paid for their petrol at the pump. I find this syndrome endemic in this country.

I never use these any more, I need to have receipts for fuel, and too often have filled up only to find the receipt roll is empty. I am quite happy to use them if they fulfill my needs but they don't

JuicyJesus

DrSyn wrote: »

The other day in a Daily Mail artical, when a customer was asked "did she see any change in the just modernised branch". The answer was "there where 2 staff members walking up and down the lines asking the customers if they can help them use the machines!"

Nothing about increasing the number of tills open to serve customers.

So why didn't these people just use the machines rather than wasting time queuing and then complaining about it to the Daily Fail?

OPening more tills is a waste of money and a member of staff who could be doing something that genuinely couldn't be done equally well by a machine, like helping customers in the front office and generating actual income for the bank.